Canary Islands, protests against mass tourism

They are less than 100km from Morocco, but constitute an autonomous community of Spain. They are immersed in the Adriatic Ocean and their temperate climate makes them the favorite destination for tourists from the United Kingdom and Germany, who flock to the beaches every year by the millions – in 2023 there were a total of 13 million. We are talking about the Canary Islands, an archipelago that has always lived off tourism, but which in recent years has no longer been able to contain the negative effects that the third sector has on the resources of the islands and on the finances of its inhabitants, among the poorest in the country , yet forced to deal with an increasingly higher cost of living. Against mass tourism and a model of intensive exploitation of the reception of foreigners, thousands of demonstrators poured into the streets of the main cities of the Canary Islands to ask for a rethink in the management of flows.

The inhabitants of the Canary Islands are calling for measures against mass tourism.

With the cry of “Canarias tener unlimite” – which loosely translated means “the Canary Islands have had enough” – supported by environmentalist groups including Greenpeace, WWF, Ecologists in Action, Friends of the Earth and SEO/Birdlife, they gathered around 60 thousand demonstrators, residents of the archipelago, to urge a freeze on foreign presences, which stress natural resources and raise the rental market, which has now become unsustainable for a population whose salaries are among the lowest in Spain (the average salary is 1,630 euros per month) and the unemployment rate is the third highest in the country, equal to 16.2%. The protests are not aimed in general at tourism, which is the sector on which 35% of the Canary Islands’ economy is based and which employs 40% of the archipelago’s workers. The protesters, who numbered 30 thousand in Tenerife alone, but who also joined from other Iberian and foreign cities, including Malaga, Granada, Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Amsterdam, London and Berlin, are asking for the flow of tourists to be controlled, as is already happening in fragile urban and natural habitats, such as Venice, which has approved an entry ticket of euros to combat hit-and-run tourism.

33.8% of the Canarian population is at risk of poverty.

“We are not against tourism, we are against a model that has led to the deterioration of our land, of our people, because the benefits and growth of tourism are not reflected in society”, explains Rosario Correa, secretary of the Save Chira-Soria platform . Environmentalist demands linked to the water emergency are linked to economic reasons, since 33.8% of the Canary Islands population is at risk of poverty or social exclusion. “How can I make a living from tourism if I don’t have a home?” This is what some demonstrators present at the march are asking themselves. Among the proposals, residents are calling for the introduction of a maximum number of visitors to the islands and the application of an environmental tax for tourists. Furthermore, a moratorium on new building development projects and a regulation for the purchase of houses that favor residents, for whom it is now prohibitive to live on their own islands.